Beyond Green Fields #2 - Regrets: A post-apocalyptic anthology Read online

  Beyond Green Fields #2: Regrets

  A post-apocalyptic anthology

  Adrienne Lecter

  Contents

  Introduction

  Aftermath

  Aftermath

  Gone

  Gone

  Done

  Done

  Patreon

  About the Author

  Books published

  Beyond Green Fields #2: Regrets

  A post-apocalyptic anthology

  by Adrienne Lecter

  Copyright © 2020 by Adrienne Lecter. All rights reserved.

  http://adriennelecter.com

  Produced and published by Barbara Klein, Vienna, Austria

  Edited by Marti Lynch

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, events, or locales is purely coincidental.

  Reproduction in whole or part of this publication without express written consent is strictly prohibited.

  The author greatly appreciates you taking the time to read her work. Please consider leaving a review wherever you bought the book, or telling your friends about it, to help spread the word.

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  To my supporters on Patreon.

  Without you, none of these stories would exist. You made this possible.

  Thank you!

  Introduction

  Round two - Regrets.

  In one aspect I’ve never had regrets about writing the short stories: getting to know Nate better. The three short stories you’ll find in this anthology—Aftermath from GF#4: Extinction / GF#5: Resurgence, Gone from GF#5: Resurgence, and Done from GF#7: Affliction—are all outtakes written from Nate’s point of view, and they’ve helped with one thing above all else: for me to really get under his skin and into his mind. Of course, since I started the short story project in 2018 around the time I was writing on the 9th Green Fields book, Exodus, it had been years since I’d worked on the according novels, but they still became the foundation for the remaining books and quite a few other short stories.

  I don’t know how other authors handle character creation; for me, they usually just spring to life (often larger than life, actually) and onto the page. A lot of the side characters never get much beyond a vague physical description, sometimes a name, and are usually not really fleshed out. Some of them—Richards or Marleen are great examples—were never meant to be proper side characters… until they convinced me otherwise. Some really gave me a run for my money and kept me on my toes, constantly revealing new facets. Some hardly changed from the first mention although they are some of the most important characters in the books.

  Nate is kind of special, but as the male lead, he’s allowed to be a little difficult.

  Unlike most of the main characters, he went through a bunch of alterations, and what ended up being the man you got to know in the first book was still a long shot from the fully-formed character he ended up being further into the series. I had a very good idea what kind of male lead I wanted to write. For one, he had to be a typical guy, which meant that he was very likely lacking a lot of the softer social skills. His past is chockfull of violence that also left some mental scars, meaning he would never be the most understanding, sympathetic character out there. Used to being a leader, he likely had no interest in compromising on anything he deemed important. He’d probably make a really shitty lead character in a romance novel—but I’d always elect him as a first choice in my zombie apocalypse team.

  Back when the first Green Fields book used to be a stand-alone biotech thriller, I was briefly entertaining the notion that Bree and Nate hadn’t met before, and consequently also didn’t know each other in the biblical sense. Considering her past and ethical compass, it made no sense why she’d fall for him—not during the siege of the Green Fields Biotech building nor in the weeks to come. Considering how much harder and harsher the early days of the zombie apocalypse would get compared to the coziness of BSL-4 labs, it made less and less sense why Bree would ever entertain the notion of seeing Nate as anything but her tormentor—and I had no ambition to write that kind of a romance subplot. Fine—I could have done without it altogether. But why would Nate even consider dragging her along and using her as anything but bait for when they absolutely had to run and saw no other option than to throw her to the zombies—quite literally? In book #1, she was a vital asset, but her usefulness rapidly decreased after that—and her charms wouldn’t keep her alive. That is, unless he had a different reason for keeping her around and healthy. It may sound brutal but yes, the thought might have crossed his mind that in this rapidly changing world the ratio of males to females would quickly change from 1:1 to 10:1, maybe even 100:1—so it didn’t hurt to keep her alive.

  Of course, you’ve read the books; you know that both their relationship but also how the group in general treats Bree is a long shot from this. It was fun to ultimately turn some of my initial planning into her constant paranoia. Keeping her alive and teaching her how to survive ended up being one of the means of the group to keep their morale up, and ultimately, I feel like Bree remains the greater horndog than her later husband. It’s fun to watch some initial ideas take on a very different life of their own.

  It was easy for Bree to see Nate as harder, colder, and less forgiving than he likely saw himself—and his actions would never have proven her otherwise. Yet while he was content to challenge her and sometimes downright annoy her into surviving, I always knew things weren’t quite like that. It was her survival instinct that turned her blind to some things, but that didn’t necessarily mean they didn’t exist. For several books straight, I was very aware of the fact that Bree did Nate quite some injustice wherever his view of her was concerned. It was easier for her to pretend that yes, he was sometimes conveniently available for some much-needed distraction but she needn’t care too much about just how endearing she was to him. They were lovers first and only step-by-step became friends, although that’s not a term he’d ever have used for her. Some readers were only too happy to buy into her version of things and sometimes even vilify him—until GF#4: Extinction rolled around with the meanest and most glorious cliffhanger at the end.

  That sure was a wakeup call for some—including Nate himself.

  I won’t lie—as much as I loved writing that entire book and right on into the next, GF#5: Retribution is and will always remain kind of my nemesis. That was one tough book to write for me, and I feel like it’s the book where my writing skipped up into higher gears. There’s a lot of darkness in that book—and I only got to write about half of it in the novel since the rest belonged to Nate himself: those endless hours as he waited for the woman he loved to die. And mere weeks after he had her back, she was suddenly gone, and likely gone for good. I couldn’t have written the novel without knowing what was going on with Nate during the entire time. Until that book, I could treat him like all the other characters—I just needed to know what motivated him so I could accurately depict his actions. But now that wasn’t enough anymore. I needed to know exactly what was going through his mind—and what he and the others got up to while Bree was otherwise occupied with dying, getting kidnapped, and running for her life.

  It was quite rewarding to return to all that unused knowledge and finally be able to tell his side of the story. And since I was already on a roll writing the highlights of Nate’s inner workings, it only made sense to keep doing more of the same, like for what happened at the base in Canada in GF#7: Affliction.
>
  Of course I’m biased, but those three short stories are still among my favorites. There’s something about writing Nate in anguish… well, that’s pretty much the allure right there: Nate, in anguish. For such a long time, he was a closed-off rock; now that his exterior had finally cracked, I had to keep digging. That, very quickly, led from me swearing up and down that I had no intention of writing more from his POV, particularly not from the later books, even less so the one I had been working on just then—GF#10: Uprising. Lo and behold, as you can read in the next installment of these short story collections, you’ll see how wrong I was.

  And that’s where this little ramble turns back around to its beginning: because I got the opportunity to write Nate’s POV of the earlier books, I couldn’t resist doing the very same for the second time in their shared lives when Bree and Nate weren’t skipping along the same road, hand in hand, smiling in the sunshine. True, I’m not sure they ever actually did that, but you know what I mean. And because I spent months exploring what was going on in Nate’s mind and soul, I knew exactly how to write him for the penultimate two novels… but more about that next time!

  This story collection is about regrets—and I have a feeling you won’t regret reading them! Please enjoy!

  Aftermath

  Aftermath

  Nate POV

  I’m livid.

  No—livid is someone who just stubbed his toe on a chair leg. I’m fucking furious to the point where sitting still, strapped into the belt harness of the car seat, is almost unbearable. I’m having tunnel vision, and it wouldn’t surprise me if I was foaming at the mouth.

  That motherfucking bastard!

  It’s one thing for him to hate my guts, but this shit? This transcends everything I’ve thought him capable of.

  No, scratch that—of course I know what he’s able to do. I just didn’t think that he’d still be churning in the old ruts now that his leash is gone. Which makes me wonder for a second—is it really gone? But that’s not something I want to contemplate, or else—

  I need to calm the fuck down, and stat. I can feel myself losing it, feel it creeping up deep inside of me, at the very edge of my narrowing vision. That rage, unbridled, untamed. Pure hatred, like an incandescent white light of destruction. And I want to give in. So much, when I consider—

  Bailey. We’ve never been tight, not like me and Burns, or Zilinsky and Romanoff, but he sure as hell didn’t deserve to bite the bullet like that. I never should have let those idiots talk me into the backup plan with the contaminated candy—but it isn’t like we would be blasting down the road if they hadn’t. Just bad luck that it was his turn today.

  Cho. Never really got along with the fucker, mostly because he thought he could disrespect my authority, just because I’m a well-documented disgrace and he had about as white a vest as you can have in the army. But he was a good officer and decent guy, and he didn’t deserve it, either.

  And just thinking of what almost happened to Bree makes my vision go white.

  Breathe. In. And out. Calm. Find your center.

  How the fuck am I expected to find something I feel I’ve lost years ago, and is about the last thing I’m interested in right fucking now?!

  The scent of bleach tickling my nose as I take another breath doesn’t do a thing to calm me down, and neither does Bree’s increasingly erratic swerving. The second she brings the car to a halt at the shoulder of the road I’m out, mindlessly mumbling something to her that doesn’t really register. I think she says something in return, but my mind is too far gone to care. I stalk over to where Zilinsky is exiting the Jeep, and in passing tell Martinez to check on Bree’s bullet wounds. With luck, she’s exaggerating and it’s just some grazes. Booster or no booster, she couldn’t have done what she did if she was hurt for real.

  The nasty voice at the back of my mind offers that people who know they have nothing left to lose are capable of tremendous feats.

  I ignore the voice.

  Zilinsky doesn’t bother with opening her mouth when she sees what kind of mood I’m in. I’m partly surprised she doesn’t sock me a good one out of principle. As soon as I’m out of earshot of the others, I explode, forcing my muscles to lock in place to make it just a verbal matter rather than physical. She listens, her expression stoic going on bored. I’m not fooled—she’s as livid as I am, only much better at hiding it.

  Until her attention snaps to something behind me and she goes still, the previous ease leaving her body. “Miller—”

  I ignore her, my rant continuing.

  Vexation turns to worry, and that makes me do a mental one-eighty. I know I’ve missed something when she tries again, only this time using my first name. “Nate.” She never does.

  A moment of surreal silence follows, the ambient noise of wind rustling grass and cicadas doing their thing to the background of the setting sun easily drowned out.

  What did I miss? What—

  I turn slowly, dread already wiping away fury that, a second ago, I was incapable of containing. Things register—

  Bree, more lying than sitting, in the high grass next to the road, too weak to keep herself upright.

  The sweat on her brow, enough to slough off blood and grime.

  The scared but determined look in her eyes.

  The gun she pulled on Martinez to keep him away—away from her.

  The fucking bleach. Why would she have dumped an entire canister of bleach over bullet wounds, unless she had an as-of-yet unknown-to-me predilection for hurting herself for no good reason whatsoever?

  The nasty voice is silent, but I don’t need it to come up with a very good reason for why she’d drown herself in bleach if she thought it could make a difference.

  I don’t need confirmation for my suspicion, but I get it when I see the devastated look in Zilinsky’s eyes. The weight of that knowledge is threatening to crush me, so I do what I do best—I ignore it as I run over to Bree, quickly divesting her of the Glock. For a second, hope flickers inside of me—maybe I’m wrong. Maybe she’s just exhausted and crashing from pain and delayed systemic shock. Weirder things have happened. But I already know I’m lying to myself when I see her up close, and a few more signs I’ve missed in my self-righteous seething that cost me hours of the suddenly most valuable currency in this world—time the woman I love has left to live.

  She doesn’t protest as I cut away her makeshift bandage. It’s not a good sign that she doesn’t even wince as I peel it away, stuck to her as it is from crusted blood, pus, and the glue that must have been still only semi solid as she slapped it on. The stench greeting me makes me want to retch, and it takes my brain a few moments to make sense of what is revealed—torn skin, ligaments, muscle, with pus already seeping from the swollen, reddish tissues. If not for the virus numbing the areas directly adjacent to the wounds, I doubt she could have gotten the car moving, let alone driven it for hours.

  Hours of time that I will never be able to recoup.

  I force myself to snap out of it and look into her eyes, silently seeking answers, then following up with words when I come up blank. “Why didn’t you say—“

  “It doesn’t matter,” she grates out, her voice raw and broken. “I didn’t even feel the bleach anymore when I dumped half of that bottle on it. And that was at the most five minutes later. I was bleeding to death, so I patched myself up. I knew there was nothing I could do anymore for myself. But I could still get you out. Get the others out. Make our sacrifices count for something. Do you understand?”

  I do, but I can’t acknowledge it. Not yet. Maybe not ever, although the realization dawns on me that I won’t get the chance of denial. In the back of my mind, that imaginary countdown is ticking down, every second lost making me want to scream.

  I know I should say something—anything, really, to reassure her—not that it will help, but she’s too quick; instead she’s reassuring me, a weak smile making her feverishly bright eyes light up. “It’s okay,” she grinds out, a cough cutting o
ff the words as she repeats them.

  No, it’s not okay. Nothing is okay, and I doubt it ever will be again. I try to shut up but the words spill over my lips anyway, my own voice barely more than a harsh whisper, heavily tinged with regret and disbelief.

  “It’s okay,” she keeps insisting, the conviction still strong in her voice. “But that doesn’t change anything. I know that, and you know that. I’m infected. And there’s nothing in this world that can save me now.”

  Infected. Someone should have struck that word from the dictionaries last year when the shit hit the fan. I know that thought makes no sense whatsoever, but I can’t help it. I can’t concentrate on anything right now because if I do, this living nightmare will become real.

  The tenderness in her eyes slays me. It’s as if all the fight has already left her, and all she cares about is my grief. I don’t understand how my selfish survivalist amazon could have turned into this so quickly, but I guess it makes sense—she had hours to come to grips with her impending demise, and if her previous incarnation as a scientist taught her anything, it must have been how devastatingly helpless we all are in the face of the plague that already killed billions. All I can do is stare back while I lose myself, my purpose, my drive—

  Until something in her expression changes, determination suddenly there that has been lacking a moment ago. She goes for the gun again, but I’m faster, hurling it away with strength heavily fueled by my desperation as I shout, “No you don’t!”